The appointment of David Loo as head of private clients for North Asia at Lombard Odier is expected to mean that the Swiss bank will try to lure more ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) bankers to its ranks.

Hong Kong-based Loo, a 20-year veteran of the city’s finance sector, moved to Lombard Odier from Citi last week, reports Finance Asia. His new firm will want to take advantage of his status in the industry to attract more UHNW relationship managers (RMs), says a private banking recruiter who asked not to be named.

UHNW – which requires clients to have at least US$20m invested with a bank – is an expanding sub-sector of Asian private banking. In Hong Kong, the wealth of UHNW people rose by 12.3% to US$595bn in 2014, according to a UBS and Wealth-X report.

As a boutique firm – it currently has fewer than 30 RMs across Asia – Lombard Odier faces strong competition for talent from larger rivals with strong UHNW teams in Asia. As we reported last week, Credit Suisse, UBS, Citi, Deutsche and Standard Chartered are all expanding. “The war for talent is more acute in UHNW as building relationships is more elaborate and requires RMs to have a deeper understanding of products,” Pathik Gupta, head of Asia Pacific wealth management at the consultancy McLagan, told us.